|
|
|
A portion of Jada's winning essay:
Considering that my primary educational and professional goal is to become an OB/GYN working with sexually abused women and children in third world countries, a Straightforward Media Science Scholarship will help me attain these goals by providing some of the financial assistance I need to finish my B.S. in biology. With the costs of medical school ranging anywhere from $30,000 to $80,000 or more a year, I need to save as much money as I possibly can now. Additionally, since I have just decided that I want to go to medical school the summer before my senior year of college, I will have to remain in undergraduate school for an extra semester in order to take the required classes for medical school. Thus far, I have paid for portions of my education through part-time jobs and taking student loans, but the majority of my education is paid for by my parents, which is a huge blessing. My parents are divorced, and my father thinks that education beyond a high school diploma is not worth the money. Thus, he refuses to help me pay for my education, which leaves the majority of the burden on my mother and step-father. I am very grateful to my step-father for helping me obtain my education, but I feel extremely guilty in receiving aid from him because I am not his child and should not be his responsibility. Additionally, my step-father has children of his own that have financial and educational needs that are not being provided for at this time ecause he is helping to put me through college. Receiving a Straightforward Media Science Scholarship will help me reach my educational and professional goals by helping me pay for more of my undergraduate education on my own and simultaneously help me save up as much money as I possibly can for medical school. Right now I am unsure as to whether or not I will be able to afford the costs of medical school, but I am determined to do anything necessary to get there and any financial assistance I receive through a scholarship now will get me that much further.
In addition, the more debt I rack up with student loans for undergraduate school, the longer it will take me to pay them back, which will keep me from returning to the girls in Bolivia sooner. Receiving a Straightforward Media Science Scholarship will help me achieve my educational and professional goals by getting me to those in need more quickly than I and my family could on our own.
Throughout our lives we are confronted with intensely trying situations that threaten to leave us deserted in a bottomless pit of despair. It is easy to allow our circumstances define our lives in such a way that we abandon all our hopes, dreams, and aspirations for the future; however, those who can turn their personal trials to account are the ones with the power to change the lives of others and the world. This struggle to change the outcome of an event having the potential to crush one's spirit into something that inspire resilience and produces a drive to transform the world is the battle in which I currently find myself. As a result of my own personal experiences with sexual harassment and assault during college, I am majoring in the scientific field of biology with aspirations of attending medical school after graduation to become an OB/GYN focusedon sexually abused women and children.
Although the vast majority of people have wonderful memories about their freshman year of college, this is not the case for me. My freshman year, I was confronted with the trial of having been sexually harassed and assaulted by several male students, which eventually lead me to two attempted suicides. Having never experienced this before and thus being totally unprepared for how to deal with the problem, I turned to my family, friends, and campus security and administration for help. Unfortunately I did not receive the support I needed and was told by all that what had happened was my fault and that boys will be boys, neither of which I believe to be true. I was fortunate enough to not have succeeded at suicide and came home that summer a very broken and depressed individual with an intense hatred for men, love, dating, and marriage. Despite my wishes to remain in my bottomless pit of despair, my parents insisted that I continue on with my education, so I transferred to another college, Eastern University. I spent my entire sophomore year living with unrelenting anger because of what I had experienced my freshman year and did not allow myself to become emotionally close to anyone because the response of my family, friends, and campus authorities had left me with a deep distrust of all people.
For over a year an a half, I kept my battles with anger, hatred, shame, and distrust to myself. However, midway through the first semester of my junior year at Eastern, one of my lifelong friends had had enough and flat out told me that she did not know what had happened to me but that whatever it was had changed my entire personality and that I needed to go for counseling. I was angry with my friend for confronting me because I knew that what she had said was true and that meant I had to do something about it. I had been thinking that by not telling anyone about the events of my freshman year I was protecting myself from being even further hurt by the unpredictable responses of others; however, the words of truth spoken by my friend were undeniable-my boundaries were not keeping other people out, they were only fencing me in. The next day I jumped the first hurdle in the healing process by going to see a counselor at the university. This past year has been a tremendous struggle for me by way of processing what happened to me and why, forgiving, and changing my perceptions
of men and love.
Though I faced several difficulties this past year in overcoming the obstacle of having been sexual assaulted, the most difficult has been forgiveness. By March of this past year I had come to a place where I had forgiven the men who had hurt me but needed to prove it to myself. In pursuit of this, one of my friends from Eastern University accompanied me on a visit to the college I had attended my freshman year. Despite the pain of what had happened and my previous need to cling to anger, I found that I had forgiven the worst individual to such a degree that I was able to give him a hug when I saw him. After having triumphed in this respect, I thought that I had successfully pulled myself up by the boot straps and conquered the most challenging trial of my life, but it was not until I went on a trip to Bolivia with a group of students from Eastern that I discovered that there was more healing yet to be done.
At the request of Eastern University staff and students, I co-led a group of 15 students from Eastern on a two week trip to Bolivia to work with Medical Assistance Program International, which is run by the parents of one of Eastern's international students, Brisa D'Anguelo. While on the trip we volunteered at a medical clinic, rebuilt Bolivian houses to prevent insects known as chagas from biting and killing the people, assisted health promoters serving the disabled in mountain villages, built a playground for children at a school started by Brisa, and taught girls at Brisa's child sexual abusecenter how to knit. It was a difficult decision for me to agree to help lead this trip because all of the planning and preparing occurred while I was in the midst of struggling with recovering from my sexual assault issues, and to be completely honest, I did not want to go because I knew that we would be working with sexually abused children, which I was afraid would constantly remind me of what happened to me that first year of college. However, I refused to be defined and imprisoned by what happened to me my freshman year, so I agreed to go to Bolivia. What I experienced while in Bolivia has changed my life by providing me with a driving force to continue to pursue by B.S. in biology and given me the dream of pursuing medical school to be an OB/GYN.
While working with the sexually abused children in Bolivia, my heart was broken time and again by what these children had experienced. The girls at the sexual abuse center ranged from six months to 16 years in age. They told me that in Bolivia women have no legal rights, but technically men are not permitted to rape women. However, very little is done to defend a woman who has been violated. They told me that it was extremely common for fathers to rape their daughters and that it is estimated that one in every three girls will be raped by a teacher by the time she reaches fourth grade. It was because of Brisa's own personal experience of being raped that she started the sexual abuse center known as Centro una Brisa de Esperanza, which translates to "Center for a Breeze of Hope". If a girl is raped she may come to the center for legal help, counseling, free meals, and lessons on how to take care of herself and her baby. Despite all of the great things the sexual abuse center in Cochabamba, Bolivia provides, it is the only one of its kind in the country and is limited by the fact that a callous government employed doctor is the only person with the legal authority to run a rape DNA test. The girls at the center told me of how the doctor had laughed at them and called all his male students in to mock the girls after they had come to him for help because the girls knew the only hope they had of winning a legal case was DNA evidence. To make things even worse, the doctor was neither patient nor understanding with the girls, and when they were reluctant to let him examine them, he would violently pull their legs apart, which to them, felt just as if they were being raped again. The center is also limited by a lack of funding, which prevents the center from staying open at night. This means that if a girl is raped by her father and comes to the center for help, the lawyers at the center are legally bound to file a case against the father and because she has no where else to go, the girl must go home to her father again that night. The girls told me that it is common for a father to kill his daughter if she had told anyone about him raping her and that the government does not punish the father for this because the victim is no longer there to complain.
Along with fearing their fathers, these girls also fear their society as a whole. Everyone in the Bolivian society blames the girl if she has been raped. There were girls who told me that their own mothers had thrown them out of the house and that while trying to catch a bus to the center, the driver would stop, open his door, spit on the girl, and yell at her because she was too young to be with men, when in reality her pregnancy was not a result the poor choices that the Bolivian society assumed that she had made. At first, the stories these young girls relayed to me only made me hate men more; after all, it appeared that they were equally boorish in any country of the world. However, after observing the truly compassionate male lawyers and psychologists at the center and the amazing marriages of those who worked for Medical Assistance Program International, I realized that although I had forgiven the individuals who had done me harm, I had unleashed my anger on all men in general. Although difficult, I gave up all of my bitterness towards men the moment I realized this, which has changed my life in unfathomable ways.
Releasing my bitterness towards men and sharing in the pain held by the girls I met in Bolivia has changed the way I view my world and has determined what I will do with the rest of my life. Before I went to Bolivia I was pursuing a degree in biology with the hopes of attending graduate school to study medical genetics and was just toying with the idea of going to medical school. Coming in such close contact with the Bolivian people and their struggles caused me to realize that medical school is the only option for me. It is not that I want to study medicine; it is that I must.
Edward Burke was correct when he said "all that is essential for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." There is so much evil facing the little innocent girls of Bolivia, and I refuse to placidly continue living the typical American life allowing these tragedies to continue to happen. I want to make a difference in the world of these Bolivian girls by becoming a doctor who will treat them with compassion and understanding; therefore, I am majoring in biology so that I can attend medical school and become an OB/GYN. My goal is to return to Bolivia and take the job that is currently held by that cruel doctor in Cochabamba. Unlike him, I want to make sure that girls who have been raped feel welcomed, safe, and respected by their doctor. I personally understand what is like to have been sexually violated, so I know how important it is for a girl who has been raped to know that she has control over what happens to her body. When I am the doctor that girls who have been raped in Cochabamba turn to, I will help the girls by telling them everything I am doing to them and why and will stop the examination when they tell me they are uncomfortable. I will be patient and loving with the girls, unlike the current doctor, because I know how thankful I am for those who were so patient and kind to me throughout my own experience. Although I cannot say that I am glad for having gone through what I experienced, I am thankful that others will benefit from what I have endured and learned as a result of the unfortunate
events of my life.
While the last three years have been the most challenging and painful of my young life, I am determined to take what was meant for evil and turn it into something wonderfully good. The Bolivian people have taught me the truth that we receive in order that we may give away. From the children in the Cochabamba sexual abuse center I have received the power to release my bitterness towards men in order that I may give them the benefits of my education and life lessons; for we must give far more than what we have, we must give what we are, which in my case will be a once broken but now healed OB/GYN on a mission to empower sexually abused women and children worldwide.
|
